Professor Says My Paper Is Too Informal Should Read Like a Journal Article

Information technology's time for academic writing to evolve — a professor explains why and how

Scientific discipline is exciting, so why do we write about it in such a dull way?

By Lucy Goodchild van Hilten     Posted on 22 May 2015

Communication is a vital part of the bookish process: sharing results with your peers means your research builds the knowledge base, calculation to our understanding of the universe and everything that goes on inside it.

So why does the writing take to be then tiresome?

Research articles tin can be near plenty impenetrable for most people, only even when readers do understand them, many are written in such a boring, unappealing mode that they're non exactly engaging page-turners. Does it affair?

For Dr. Filipe Branco dos Santos, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, we could all stand to benefit from a big alter in bookish writing:

As researchers, we like to think we're creative, but in my stance the scientific community is a very conservative place in reality. We repeat the aforementioned formulae over and over, including when we're writing articles.

It'due south ofttimes journals themselves that set the formulae – some journals have such strict submission guidelines that authors are restricted at the sentence level. "Guidelines are important in a style, just when they're so restrictive, you terminate up with an article with exactly the aforementioned structure as all the other articles in the periodical," Filipe says. "This affects me every day. I really savour reading scientific papers – I do it a lot – and maybe that's why I'd like to run into some novelty."

Writing manner is influenced past the greats

He has a theory of why scientific papers are ho-hum to evolve:

My hypothesis is that people often desire to exercise things the way the greats do them – you lot can see this in music, for case, with people emulating their guitar heroes. Every in one case in a while there'southward a revolutionary person, and all of a sudden everyone is following their new formula.

It's this peak-downward approach that holds back change in academic writing – originality is reserved simply for people who are well established in their field, he says, with researchers telling themselves, "I'm not at that place yet, I don't see myself as one of the greats. The style I tackle it is to stand by the style and language decisions I really believe in. Occasionally I attempt to stand a fiddling more firm next to a paragraph a reviewer is criticizing for the way it's written. I'm not talking almost misstatements, or writing that's unclear or ambiguous, but really almost style choices."

Influence is besides powerful in terms of education the next generation of researchers. But is this a missed opportunity? "Nigh people I know who are great communicators tend to be nifty teachers who have engaging lectures," Filipe says. "When you go to their lectures, you really savour them – they're total of metaphors and they nowadays the content in an interesting way. Information technology's a shame this very often doesn't transpire in their writings.

"I'm responsible for instruction a lot of future researchers how to write. It's striking to me that we're telling them how to make their writing clear and transparent, but in doing and so, we're actually making it very inaccessible because the fashion we have to write makes it incredibly irksome to read."

Journals play a function in shaping fashion

Publishing likewise influences bookish writing – reviewers and editors play important roles in this process. "The peer review procedure is a very important part of publishing," he explains, "but it's not just your science that's on the line – reviewers often make stylistic judgments, and if your paper diverges too far from the norm it doesn't fare well."

The accepted approach to academic writing is formal and technical, and many editors and reviewers will propose stylistic and language changes to an article. In doing so, though, they may be limiting the impact of a paper. "I call up more engaging writing gets more people reading about your work – there are papers that have been cited more because of the way they were written," he says.

"As a reviewer, I avoid stylistic comments – I tend to stick to the science, and I speak up when at that place'due south something I don't understand. What I care about is whether I become the bulletin, and whether it's logically sound. I'll never make a comment nearly a word you lot have used unless I don't agree with the idea I get from it; if I practice, then it'south a trouble of clarity."

Improve by trying new things (that may not piece of work out)

When authors – including less established ones – attempt something original in their writing, in the correct situation, with the correct journal it can be refreshing and engaging. Simply what if it'due south not? According to Filipe, failure is OK, and it'due south something we demand to comprehend if nosotros're going to make a change.

"Occasionally an author volition try something new and it merely won't work. Merely that's OK; the fact that they actually tried to exercise something different means something good tin come out of it. Even if you're simply showing how non to do it, you cease up getting more exposure," he says.

"Whether y'all like it or not, or think it'due south advisable or not, it's a weird earth where you don't accept the liberty to express your science the way you want to express it."

So what'south the magic formula?

Diversity is one of the things I'd like the most. I don't only heed to jazz, or rock, or classical music, just as I don't simply like one style of commodity. Something I would never say is 'this is the formula that everyone should be post-obit.' We demand to get abroad from the idea that there is just one way of communicating a paper.

5 ways to appoint readers with your research

Try these simple tricks to freshen up your writing and entice more readers.

1. Give your commodity an interesting title. Make information technology clear to readers what your piece of work is about, simply go along the championship short and snappy. The title is a great place to filter out unnecessary jargon. For case, the title "Analysis of the process of altering the flavor of the liquid beverage derived from plants of the family Rubiaceae using crystallized brusk-chain carbohydrates" might instead exist "Analyzing the gustatory modality of coffee sweetened with sugar."

ii. Write in active sentences. Was the ball dropped by you, or did you drop the brawl? Traditionally, bookish writing is in the passive voice – grammatically, that means the subject of the sentence is the recipient of an action. Only we engage more with stories about people; if y'all are the subject of a sentence, information technology becomes more naturally interesting. Then instead of "the agar plates were incubated," endeavor "we incubated the agar plates."

iii. Write brusque sentences and paragraphs. Ane surefire manner to lose readers is to write in long, complicated sentences. Academic subjects tend to bring with them a technical language with long words. Using technical terms already increases the difficulty of reading a slice of writing. If you want to keep hold of your readers and make certain they really empathise your bulletin, proceed it short and sweet.

4. Don't use unnecessary jargon. Sure, you'll need to use some technical terms, but if you tin can brand your writing more interesting with alternatives, give it a endeavor. If yous have a pick of words to apply, and one is more recognizable than another, become with the familiar ane. Y'all could also introduce a technical term, so continue with the more familiar term, for example: "We tracked several colonies of Apis mellifera (honeybees) to run across how far they travel to food. The honeybees flew upwards to …"

5. Enrich your commodity with AudioSlides or a lay summary. Elsevier offers commodity enrichments on ScienceDirect so you can talk most your research in your own words or summarize your article for a wider audience. To notice out more than, visit the Author pages on Elsevier.com.

Encrypting results for secrecy

In the 17^th century, natural philosophers started to publish their discoveries, but competition to be commencement to brand a discovery led many of them to develop a way of publishing without giving anything away. Newton, Hooke and Galileo were among those who started to publish anagrams. In his book Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science Michael Nielsen describes how Galileo first published his discovery of Saturn's moons in an anagram:

Instead of explaining forthrightly what he had seen, Galileo explained that he would draw his latest discovery in the form of an anagram: smaismrmilmepoetaleumibunenugttauiras. By sending this anagram, Galileo avoided revealing the details of his discovery, but at the aforementioned time ensured that if someone else – such as Kepler – later made the same discovery, Galileo could reveal the anagram and claim the credit.

Beingness showtime isn't such a powerful commuter these days, but in a way, academic publishing does preclude many readers from understanding – or at least enjoying – enquiry papers.

Filipe Branco dos Santos

Dr. Filipe Branco dos Santos is Assistant Professor of Molecular Microbiology at the University of Amsterdam Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, where he works in the Molecular Microbial Physiology Grouping led by Prof. Klaas J. Hellingwerf. His research interests focus on the development of life and its accommodation strategies to different ecology dynamics. He obtained his PhD in 2008 with Prof. Willem Thousand. de Vos from the Laboratory of Microbiology of Wageningen University. He carried out about of his postdoctoral inquiry in the field of Systems Biology at the VU University of Amsterdam in the Systems Bioinformatics group headed by Prof. Bas Teusink.

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Elsevier Connect Correspondent

Afterward a few accidents, Lucy Goodchild van Hilten discovered that she's a much improve writer than a scientist. Following an MSc in the History  of Science, Medicine and Technology at Imperial College London, she became Assistant Editor of Microbiology Today. A stint in the press part at Royal saw her stories on the front pages, and she moved to Amsterdam to work at Elsevier as Senior Marketing  Communications Manager for Life Sciences.

She'south now a freelance writer at Tell Lucy. Tweet her @LucyGoodchild.

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Source: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/its-time-for-academic-writing-to-evolve-professor-says

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